Lessons of Loss

Updated March 6, 2024, at 9:48 a.m.

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A year ago last weekend, my friend Jordan died by suicide. She was a sophomore in high school.

At the time, I dodged her death with euphemisms (“bad news from back home”) and submitted final projects late. I kicked sticks around the Yard and tried to break through the ground by jumping high and landing hard. I built time for crying into my shower routine, between conditioner and body wash.

My body was in one place but my mind across the country — a cruel subversion of reality.

When I graduated from high school, my greatest fear was falling out of touch with people. Not with my closest friends — I knew they would always be there — but with the people I wasn’t as close with — with whom I would laugh with but never get lunch, whose personalities I had gleaned, but whose parents I would never meet. People like Jordan.

Whether a well-founded fear or a self-fulfilling prophecy, some friends indeed turn into once-friends in the transition from high school to college. Classes and practices become Facetimes and texts become places and things that remind us of people we haven’t talked to in months — then years.

But just because we’re not in contact with someone doesn’t mean we couldn’t send them a text any time, doesn’t mean they don’t still think about us from time to time, doesn’t mean they’re not doing well. A comforting permanency in the face of transience.

In exceptional cases, though, the permanency implodes.

Jordan was not the only student from my high school who died by suicide last year. A few weeks later, Jonah did too. Three months later, so did Trey.

It was, to quote my alma mater’s president, “unimaginable.”

Jordan, Jonah, and Trey’s deaths are part of a greater, cataclysmic course. Last year, the median age for teen suicide in Los Angeles County (where my high school is located) fell to 16 years old — a historic low.

My high school did what it could. That spring, the administration instituted a policy ensuring that student grades could not drop, provided counseling services, and increased community-centric programming. Last fall, they rolled out the more comprehensive “Mental Health and Wellness Plan” and implemented school-wide wellness initiatives.

None of this would make up for losing classmates, teammates, and friends. None of it would make up for losing sisters, brothers, and children.

I wish it hadn’t taken me a year to write something about Jordan; I wish there wasn’t a reason to write anything in the first place.

But why write at all?

I’m writing because since Jordan died, I started saying “I love you” more often — and meaning it. I give more hugs, and I hold them for longer. I am more generous with my words and more gentle with my interactions. I try to leave everyone I see with the unambiguous feeling that they are cared for.

I’m writing this piece because I believe these are things everyone can do. Because I hope that some words in The Crimson — instead of unthinkable tragedy — will be the catalyst for this change.

My favorite memory of Jordan takes place at an afternoon track practice. She and a few other freshmen girls were teaching me how to hurdle — an event I desperately aspired to learn after years relegated to endless laps on the track. A true novice, I floated passively over each hurdle, hanging in the air for a little too long. We all fell over laughing about it (I was seriously terrible), but when we had regained our composure, Jordan had a piece of advice for me: When it comes to hurdles, you can’t jump around — or even over — them. Instead, almost counterintuitively, you must visualize yourself moving straight through them.

Her advice worked. My form immediately improved; I even placed in a few meets. And let me tell you, there’s no feeling like crossing a finish line after successfully clearing eight 30-inch-high obstacles.

One year later, I found myself turning to the same advice, this time for an obstacle entirely unrecognizable to me. In a tragic — maybe hopeful — twist of fate, it was not any of my living friends or family who showed me how to navigate my grief last spring — it was the lasting advice from Jordan herself.

I made it past the first few months by facing them head-on and moving straight through. Things seemed insurmountable, until I cleared them.

I no longer think about Jordan everyday now. Sometimes weeks go by. In time, I imagine, it will be months. I don’t think this is a bad thing — in fact, it’s probably good. And when I do think of her, it’s not wholly without pain (I doubt it will ever be). Most importantly, though, it’s also with an overwhelming appreciation — for everything she gave and continues to give me.

Violet T.M. Barron ’26, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Adams House.